Good Monday, everyone. I hope you’re bundling up out there as the temperatures in Louisiana are set to drop into the twenties. Temperatures that low are deadly for people in the Reynauds community, so if you see a fellow frosty out on the street, offer to blow warm air into their hands. You might just save a life.
Don’t forget to wrap your pipes and bring your pets inside. You don’t want to walk outside and find a catsicle. I know I wouldn’t.
You may not know this, but I have a cat of my own. Her name is Mack. She’s a black Bombay shorthair that I found wandering around. I remember seeing her lying in the grass one day, and I said to myself, “That cat’s going to be my best friend.”
At the time, I was an interventionist at the alternative school where I first began teaching. An interventionist is just what it sounds like; I intervened when disturbed children fought each other in the hallways.
It wasn’t the most glamorous job, and it became rather depressing; smiles were in short supply, so I looked for joy where I could find it, and the idea of easing a stray cat’s suffering felt like an easy way to lighten the day-to-day sorrow.
I decided to take some turkey meat downstairs and feed it to my new friend. She was hesitant at first. She’d hiss at me and approach with caution. She’d gobble up the turkey meat, hiss again, and run away.
Every time she hissed, I knew it was only because she was prudent, and I didn’t take it personally. There are a lot of strays in the area, and most of them are either sex-crazed layabouts or feral to the point of insanity.
I knew Mack was different. She was lean with piercing eyes. Her coat had the glossy finish of a vintage Ferrari, and she moved with intention. She could pluck a Downy Woodpecker from the sky or chew the head off of a Kingsnake.
She could squeeze into the tightest spaces, and while she kept herself immaculately groomed, she wasn’t above crushing a lizard’s skull in a mud puddle.
“Savage elegance,” I’d whisper as she eviscerated a brood of baby birds with her razor-sharp claws. Was Mack a little psychotic? Maybe. Did she kill for fun? Sometimes, it looked that way, but something drew me to her.
One morning, I found that Mack had gotten a fishing hook stuck in her mouth. She’d been snacking on a fish carcass left by the water that some irresponsible fisherman had left his hook in. She looked miserable, she couldn’t eat, and she was terrified.
I tried to get close enough to get it out of her mouth, but I couldn’t. I went so far as to chase her with a net-like an orderly at a nuthouse pursuing a crazy person in an old cartoon, but even in her weakened state, she was too fast for me.
I thought it was curtains for Mack, and that day at school felt bleaker than usual.
It was also my fortieth birthday, and while some rung in their fortieth with a lavish party, letting go of their formative years and embracing middle age, I was getting dragged down the hallway on the back of a rotund sixth grader trying to mutilate a classmate for saying something unrepeatable about his deceased grandmother.
I didn’t see Mack for a few days. I thought she crawled into a dark hole somewhere to die quietly, but she emerged one sunny day with the hook out of her mouth. She never told me how she dislodged it, but that’s Mack. She is a woman of few words. Now, she has a little crooked smile that she finds repulsive, but I think it gives her character.
A few months later, I could no longer handle the weight of working in a building filled with angry children, so I resigned.
I tried my best to work online and get traction with my writing. I was making very little money, and the future looked bleak. All of this and, out of the blue, Mack got knocked up.
To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. The times I warned her about the feral males in the area and how they’re only after one thing went unheeded. I marched down to the gas station where the lazy males hung out to demand the father step forward and handle his responsibilities, but the jerks just rolled in the sunshine, laughing at me.
Mack disappeared again for a while, close to a month. I looked for her every day but couldn’t find her. I wished her well and hoped she and the babies were getting along in the unforgiving world. Then, one day, as I trudged up the stairs after a dismal day of writing for no one, I almost stepped on a tiny black ball of fur.
Mack had brought her kittens to me. One by one, they stuck their little heads out of their hiding places and sniffed the air, trying to understand who this giant was and what he wanted. I counted six of them and asked Mack if it was okay to hold them.
She didn’t object, so I gathered them and fashioned a little box to sleep in. For all her strength and independence, Mack was finally being vulnerable with me, and I’m glad she was because I was in kitty heaven.
I took care of the kitties the best I could. I’d never been a dad before, and while this wasn’t Mack’s first go-around with being a mom, she didn’t want to lose this litter like she’d lost the last. I was determined to nurture and keep these kitties safe; I had a purpose for the first time in a while.
I fashioned a vest that secreted kitten formula. I would lay on my side and let the kittens suckle from the nipples on the vest, simulating the experience they’d have with their mother.
I’m kidding; I only sketched out the blueprints for the vest. I never built it. I swear.
My mother and I helped raise the kitties, and we finally found them good homes. At least, that’s what the animal shelter told us. I don’t think they turned them into kitten soup, but you never know. I like to imagine them frolicking in green grass, emulating the effortless prowess of their mother.
After the kittens left, Mack decided she wanted to live with me, and we’ve been best friends ever since, just like I predicted. The last few years haven’t been ideal; I’m sure that’s the case for many of you. They’ve been punctuated with disappointment and uncertainty: health scares, family turmoil, and stagnant momentum.
But, as I look down the barrel of my forty-second year, for all the missteps, I have a cat named Mack who loves me and appreciates someone being nice to her when they didn’t have to. I don’t know if easing the suffering of a skinny Bombay shorthair gets you an automatic ticket on the escalator to Heaven, but it has to count for something.
When Mack and I relax after a hard day, I rub her chin and ask how a couple of bums like us got so lucky. She purrs in agreement, never interjecting her two cents but simply appreciating all she has.
When I get in my head about this or that, I pet Mack for a while and remember to savor the small things. There are those who say I rescued her, but if I really think about it, she rescued me.
So, Mack, thanks for taking a chance on a lunk like me. I’m sure you could have charmed your way into the life of someone much richer. I will not hold it against you if you find someone in a better financial position.
If you do, just give me a heads up so I can find a tall bridge from which I can hurl my body into the icy water below.
Until next time, meow.